Harvard Men's Soccer Team Suspended Over Lewd 'Reports'

What could have been a season for the record books has ended in disgrace for Harvard's men's soccer team. The team, ranked first in the Ivy League, was suspended for the rest of the season after the discovery of what the university calls an "appalling" ranking system for female players, the Wall Street Journal reports. In what appears to be a tradition going back to at least 2012, players on the men's team circulated "scouting reports" with pictures of the women's team, along with lewd comments, numerical rankings based on their attractiveness, and a sexual position assigned to each player, reports the BBC.

University officials say they decided to cancel the season because they found the "scouting reports" had continued up to the present season, and because players had not been forthcoming when first asked about the issue, the Harvard Crimson reports. "The decision to cancel a season is serious and consequential, and reflects Harvard's view that both the team's behavior and the failure to be forthcoming when initially questioned are completely unacceptable, have no place at Harvard, and run counter to the mutual respect that is a core value of our community," Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust said in a statement. The Crimson notes that the team would have clinched an NCAA tournament berth if it had won its game against Columbia Saturday. (More Harvard stories.)